fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Fred J. Johnston House is a Kingston gem

by Paul Smart
September 18, 2011
in Uncategorized
0

When Fred J. Johnston started collecting 18th- and early 19th-century furnishings and decorative arts for the eight-room Federal-style house that he first rescued from oblivion in 1937, no one – least of all he – could ever have dreamed that the place on the corner of Wall and Main Streets in Uptown Kingston would end up being preserved as a Museum named in Johnston’s honor. Nor could anyone anticipate that the man himself would end up having the effect he did, pushing beyond a simple start as an antiques dealer to becoming not only one of the world’s great champions of early American design, but a great friend and mentor to First Lady Jackie Kennedy to boot.

“His shop was a treasure-trove visited by curators, collectors and dealers,” noted auctioneer Ron Bourgeault said of the local legend’s legacy before a sale of some of his last pieces a decade ago in New Hampshire. “Fred sold to major museums and collectors, and had a close association with Henry Francis du Pont.”

Johnston was born poor, and stopped his education after tenth grade to take a job in the Fessenden Shirt factory, where he later said that he spent hours dreaming of someday becoming an antiques dealer surrounded by beautiful pieces from the past. At first, he used his family’s garage as a showroom for what he could afford to collect from others’ junk sales. Eventually, he opened a basement shop, and then found work as a draftsman for noted Kingston architect Myron Teller, then designing some of the city’s finest restoration houses to this day. Teller introduced Johnston to du Pont, then searching out period furnishings and architectural parts for his new Winterthur Museum in his family mansion outside Wilmington, Delaware. Du Pont made him a consultant, which led him to more introductions – and eventually the Kennedy, for whom he helped complete a redo at the White House.

Among Johnston’s greater achievements, beyond his championing of Federalist design and restoration, was his purchase and use of the house that now bears his name in Kingston. Built circa 1812 as the residence of New York State senator John Sudam, who hosted the likes of Washington Irving and Martin Van Buren, the place was sold in the 1880s to another family, who decided to sell it for demolition and site use as a gas station in the late 1930s. As if on a campaign, Johnston persuaded a local bank to lend him the money to buy the house and set about the place’s restoration as not only the grand home that it was intended to be, but also a showcase that served his private antiques business’ purposes.

Throughout his life, Johnston would decorate his eight rooms for maximum sales effect, and welcomed some of the great classic trendsetters of his day to Kingston as a result. It’s a business model that still has legs. Furthermore, Johnston’s push toward preservation of our nation’s past ended up aiding the greater push toward landscape preservation that characterized the Johnson years in the mid-1960s, as well as the eventual naming of his Uptown Kingston neighborhood as a national treasure: the Stockade District, as it’s now known.

When he died in 1993, Johnston handed stewardship of his house to the Friends of Historic Kingston, who have since have preserved it as a Museum in his honor. The place fairly breathes old-style elegance: as much a testament to later, mid-20th-century patrician tastes as the actual Federalist period Johnston’s with which allegiances stayed. One gets a sense of measured conversations and subtle salesmanship, as well as the reasons why duPont took to calling his protégé’s home “a small Winterthur on the Hudson.”

Guided tours of the Fred J. Johnston House are offered May through October on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. or by appointment. Even the esteemed travel site Fodor’s notes this being one of the great undiscovered museum treasures of the Hudson Valley, if not the entire nation.

The docents are knowledgeable and of a character with the place. Many knew Johnston in his later years. All are proud of this home’s place in their city and county’s history, and of its continued presence as a cultural beacon.

While visiting, don’t forget to check out the Friends of Historic Kingston’s fine museum space, adjacent to Johnston’s house. For further information call (845) 339-0720 or visit www.fohk.org.

Tags: Fred Johnston HouseOff the beaten pathuptown
Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

She’s got chops

Next Post

Outward bound with the Hudson Valley Ramble

Paul Smart

Related Posts

Molinaro pressed on Social Security cuts during constituent meeting in Saugerties
Politics & Government

Molinaro pressed on Social Security cuts during constituent meeting in Saugerties

March 20, 2023
It Won’t Be This Way Forever at Opus 40
Uncategorized

It Won’t Be This Way Forever at Opus 40

August 11, 2022
The New Paltz Paint Swap keeps old paint out of the landfill and saves money for DIYers
Uncategorized

The New Paltz Paint Swap keeps old paint out of the landfill and saves money for DIYers

July 6, 2022
Letters to the editor (2/23/22)
Uncategorized

Letters to the editor (2/23/22)

March 8, 2022
Halloween was a real treat and at its peak in New Paltz
Uncategorized

Halloween was a real treat and at its peak in New Paltz

November 3, 2021
How Saugerties streets got their names, part II
Uncategorized

Town of Saugerties sets 7 p.m. Halloween curfew

October 28, 2021
Next Post

Outward bound with the Hudson Valley Ramble

Trending News

  • Hostile work environment? Feds are asked to investigate the Woodstock Police 1.5k views
  • Thousands take to streets in New Paltz for LGBTQ+ Pride 0.9k views
  • Smoke from Nova Scotia: Aerial fire and brimstone cast a plague on Ulster County 767 views
  • Brookside Road overpass bridge in New Paltz is closed indefinitely due to multiple collisions 675 views
  • Unannounced repaving project has Springtown neighbors in uproar 453 views
  • New Paltz team uses ketamine to treat depression 430 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
68°
Partly Cloudy
5:20 am8:30 pm EDT
Feels like: 68°F
Wind: 4mph N
Humidity: 54%
Pressure: 29.77"Hg
UV index: 7
SunMonTue
84/61°F
75/59°F
79/54°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing